Restoran Tong Sheng is well-known for their Cheesy prawn bee hoon and crabs and is extremely popular with the locals for dinner. The restaurant started in 2009 helmed by Chef Lee who was already a Hokkien noodle genius at 12 in Kuala Lumpur. Now the business is handled by 2nd generation Lee who has enhanced the business with new innovations.
Reservations are limited and most of the customers are walk-in. If you want a taste of this, be prepared to stand in queue for at least 1.5 hours. They open for business at 5.30 pm and if you were thinking to arrive slightly before that to be the first ones in the queue, you are not alone!
We tried to make a reservation with them about 2 weeks before our visit and the allocation was already full. We arrived slightly close to 5.30 pm and there was a good 10 – 15 groups of diners already ahead of us. Parking is available in front of the restaurant as well as the roads on the side. The restaurant sets out chairs for their patrons while queuing but this applies only to the first 5 groups. We waited close to 2 hours before we reached the heavenly sitting area to give our pathetic legs a rest after the endless standing.
The servers will bring you the menu when you reach group 5 in the queue to prepare your order. Once you are seated at the table, they take about 10 mins to serve the food. We ordered only 2 dishes as we were late for our massage appointment. The prawns were huge, succulent and cooked to perfection. We ordered a medium and there were 2 prawns sliced into quarters. The gravy was milky and cheesy yet not overpowering. While the dish was extremely palatable, I not sure if the queue of 2 hours was worth it. The bee hoon comes in 3 sizes : MYR 35 for small MYR 70 for medium and MYR 105 for large.
The milk crab comes at a seasonal price and the minimum order was 2 crabs. The gravy is a cross between the Singapore Butter crab and Thailand small green chilli padi sauce that you sometimes find in Bangkok. The exact flavour is very addictive with a savoury yet tangy spicy punch. The crabs were relatively fresh and meaty. We were drinking up the gravy by spoonfuls by the end of the meal as they did not have any mantou to soak up the tasty gravy.
We subsequently noticed that the restaurant does take-away orders and there is no need to queue. The only draw is you can only pick up at order at 11 pm. Well, would I come back for this 2 dish I asked myself, I probably would if we managed to get a reservations or decided to do a take-out supper at 11 pm.
Bear Travels . Bear Eats . Bear Cooks 